1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method of monitoring the status of peripheral devices in a network system having multiple peripheral devices and multiple computers connected over a network from the computers without concentrating a load on the network. The invention also relates to a computer and a network system whereby the status of peripheral devices can be monitored from the computer without concentrating a load on the network.
2. Related Art
Japanese Unexamined Patent Appl. Pub. JP-A-H10-49314 describes a network system having a computer connected to a plurality of printers over a LAN. JP-A-H10-49314 describes a status response process that is executed when the network system starts up. In the status response process each computer sends a status request to each of the plural printers. Each printer then determines and sends its own status to each computer.
When the status response process runs during startup, network traffic increases greatly due to the concentration of packets sent over the network. These packets include packets sent from each computer to each printer requesting the startup status of the printer, packets sent from each printer to each computer in response to the request, packets to initialize communication between each printer that responded and each computer, and packets enabling each computer to acquire the status of each initialized printer. As a result, the startup time until the network system can actually be used becomes longer.